CES letters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son (who is Black) was in the 95th percentile on MAP-R at a "focus" school, was placed in the lottery, did not get in the regional CES. Not sure how or if this matches the anecdotes already gathered in this thread.

I'll admit to a little pang because I was in "GT" classes when I was a kid and I have a love/hate relationship with that label. But staying in his home school is probably a better move for him, and I feel confident that his needs will be met.

You should appeal this decision.

WHY. Why should this parent appeal?

I'm a flaming progressive that would be happy to have race be a consideration, but it's not.

So what is there to appeal? A 95th percentile kid WAS put in the lottery pool, but then wasn't randomly selected? Just like tons of other 90th, 95th and 99th percentile kids, because there are more of them than slots available?

Thus...?

I am the parent who was being asked to appeal, and as this commenter noted, I don't have any grounds to appeal. There's simply not enough space for everyone (which is a different issue, but that's the way things are now). My son's school does have the ELC, and he'll also be with friends and teachers who know and love him. I believe there's a sufficient peer group at his school to adequately challenge him. And philosophically, I think there should be more enrichment opportunities as a student's home school, anyway.

(I'd also like to think he'd still have been in the lottery if he went to a "richie-rich" school, but who knows.)

I'm trying to steer myself away from being obsessed with labels (even though I acknowledge that bit of disappointment when I got the letter.) I was happy to throw my information into the mix just for conversation, but this is now a 17-page thread about third graders. The kids that we are talking about (kids who made it into the lottery) are clearly going to be okay whether they get into the CES or not, because their MAP-R scores demonstrate that.

Who knows? I do! He wouldn't have qualified for the lottery, and therefore wouldn't be eligible for the ELC at his home school, with a score in the 95th percentile at a "richie-rich" school.

Assuming you are correct...lucky us, I guess. It makes some sense for limited enrichment dollars to be spent at schools with children for whom enrichment might otherwise be hard to come by, and that is the case at a focus school.

But I doubt a teacher at a "richie-rich" school would have my son in a corner reading "see Spot run" simply because he was in the 95th percentile on the MAP-R and not the 99th. If I felt he wasn't sufficiently challenged, I'd take it up with her.

I’m the PP and 100% agree. I think the 85+ high SES kids who didn’t make the pool after their scores were locally normed down below 85 will be just fine because their home cohort is so strong and their schools have the resources to make sure they’re sufficiently challenged. Not so much the case at many low SES schools

[Anonymous]

Here's my report from Christmas Future, as the parent of a kid who has been through all of this.

For my kids, the CES program was a "nice to have" but not a necessity. Similarly, HS magnets are a "nice to have" but there are enough opportunities for differentiation that a bright and hard-working kid will do fine.

Where y'all need to focus your energies right now is on middle school. The middle school magnets were a lifesaver, and I mean that absolutely literally in the case of one of my kids.

Take all this energy and worry, and translate it upward. Demand that MCPS follow through on their promise to "cohort" high achievers in HIGH and AIM, and that they start differentiating MS English.

Make noise. Show up. Middle school is where it is really going to matter, so organize now while your kids are in 3rd in the hopes that it is better by the time they hit 6th.

[Anonymous]

YES, this makes so much sense!!
I see so much energy wasted here on DCUM. Clearly families are invested. There's enough time until our kids get to middle school for us to actually push for this!

[Anonymous]

Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

You know what really helped my kids. I took them to the library once a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Well,those changes back in 2017 were very minor when compared to today's lottery which is completely random. Personally, I thought the changes were by and large great, but universal screening increased the applicant pool from a few hundred students whose parents nominated them for these programs to thousands. The application of local morns was less significant than some would like to believe, but regardless, 90% of those selected were in the top 5% after the 2017 changes. Today those selected are in the top 15%. It's night and day... And the lottery makes this even more necessary since more often than not the top students aren't being selected for these programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Let's brainstorm how this push could happen. Petitions are one option, but I'm afraid they're too easy to ignore. What about a letter writing campaign perhaps loosely organized by the Gifted Education Committee (GEC) of the Montgomery County PTA, but executed by the each school's PTA representatives to the MC PTA or the MC GEC? The school PTA reps are likely to take an interest in these issues and presumably are better able to energize the base.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Thank you, PP. This is an excellent summary. And I personally agree with your goals/suggestions. What I don’t quite understand is why these very simple asks, which don’t really cost money or require much special teacher training, are an obstacle to carry out. What is the barrier or counter argument? Why are parents and the GEC screaming into the void to get this very reasonable promise delivered?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Let's brainstorm how this push could happen. Petitions are one option, but I'm afraid they're too easy to ignore. What about a letter writing campaign perhaps loosely organized by the Gifted Education Committee (GEC) of the Montgomery County PTA, but executed by the each school's PTA representatives to the MC PTA or the MC GEC? The school PTA reps are likely to take an interest in these issues and presumably are better able to energize the base.

Very minor point: It's the Montgomery County Council of PTAs, so MCCPTA. They are much stronger this year, but will have a strong opinion about how to approach MCPS. Find your GT liasion to the MCCPTA through your elementary school - they are on the MCCPTA gifted committee listserve (or should be).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Where I went to school, it was very simple: students choose between regular English and honors/AP English. People tended to choose what was appropriate to them. It sounds like 'Advanced English for All" combines regular and honors English together, which is not cool for the students who were hoping for something more vigorous. As with my school, I think all students should be able to try out honors/'advanced' classes if they'd like. If they find it too much they can switch to regular. I don't think it's necessary to prohibit the non-15% from advanced classes.

[Anonymous]

excuse me, rigorous, not vigorous

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Where I went to school, it was very simple: students choose between regular English and honors/AP English. People tended to choose what was appropriate to them. It sounds like 'Advanced English for All" combines regular and honors English together, which is not cool for the students who were hoping for something more vigorous. As with my school, I think all students should be able to try out honors/'advanced' classes if they'd like. If they find it too much they can switch to regular. I don't think it's necessary to prohibit the non-15% from advanced classes.

You know, this is not a bad idea. No one would complain if they got to choose what they felt was the appropriate placement. Mcps doesn’t actually need to invent arbitrary cut offs and act all gatekeeper-y.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Agree with 19:07. Parents should try to get ELC in their local school/get more enrichment. But for middle school, there’s a much bigger gap and way fewer magnet seats than Center seats. People should be trying to bring back real Honors English and Science classes - or make the existing classes stronger!

Don't disagree with this, but if you have a third grader and it's your first kid, you have very little knowledge about what kinds of classes are offered in middle school, which is why we are talking about 4th grade and not 6-8. How do we go about advocating for these things? (Not a snarky question - if people suggesting this have been though MS already, what do you suggest we do/ask for?) Thanks!

I'm the PP. Here's what I would strongly suggest this year's 3rd grade parents (and below) start fighting for. They can get in touch with the Gifted Education Committee of the Montgomery County PTA, which has recently rediscovered its sense of purpose. I'm going to start with some history so you understand why this is a reasonable ask.

The history: Back in the 2017-2018 school year, MCPS rolled out a new admissions process for the middle school magnets. Some of the changes were excellent and needed, such as getting rid of the teacher recommendations and at-home essays, which were prone to either racial bias or cheating respectively.

Some of those changes were probably objectively correct, but deeply unpopular, such as local norming of test scores and geographic balancing. This meant that the "top" students from a high SES school would get in, but so would the "top" students from a more economically integrated school even if the "top" students from the integrated school had lower test scores than some of the kids in the high SES school.

Imagine the pre-2017 system as a foot race, and the first kids past the finish line got in. The post-2017 system was like multiple different foot races, with participation determined by home school FARMS rates. This meant the incoming class was theoretically more diverse. It's kind of like the UT system where you get automatic admission if you are in the top 8% of your graduating class, no matter where in the great state of Texas you come from. As you can imagine, this was wildly unpopular even as it was probably the fairest way to approach admissions in a county where opportunity is not equally distributed.

Because it was so unpopular, MCPS made a very specific promise. If your kid had a "home school" cohort, they would get access to a similar education as the magnet. They could access AIM (Applied Integrated Math) for mathematics in 6th grade and HIGH (Historical Inquiry in Global Humanities) for social studies. The implicit pledge was that the eligible kids would be cohorted for those classes, just like they would have been at the magnet.

But the principals didn't play ball. Some immediately made HIGH available for everyone (Pyle) and others just refused to offer it (TPMS) for the first few years. As far as I've heard, none of them actually cohorted HIGH so that the kids who would have been eligible for the magnet were together.

At the same time, MCPS rolled out "Advanced English for All." So now you had HIGH for all and Advanced English for all, and in both cases the entire school population was just jumbled up in both classes. So kids who are just learning English (no shame!) were in Advanced English alongside kids who would have been in the Humanities magnet in earlier years. So now the kids who need extra help aren't getting it, and the kids who would benefit from accelerated instruction aren't getting it.

All of this is to say that parents need to ask for MCPS to make good on their earlier promises:

1) Cohort AIM and HIGH for kids who met the eligibility for magnet admission (now 85th percentile on MAP). Put those kids together so they can learn together.

2) Go back to offering both Regular English and Advanced English, reserving Advanced English again for kids in the top 15%.

That's all. But parents need to push push push.

Where I went to school, it was very simple: students choose between regular English and honors/AP English. People tended to choose what was appropriate to them. It sounds like 'Advanced English for All" combines regular and honors English together, which is not cool for the students who were hoping for something more vigorous. As with my school, I think all students should be able to try out honors/'advanced' classes if they'd like. If they find it too much they can switch to regular. I don't think it's necessary to prohibit the non-15% from advanced classes.

You know, this is not a bad idea. No one would complain if they got to choose what they felt was the appropriate placement. Mcps doesn’t actually need to invent arbitrary cut offs and act all gatekeeper-y.

I agree. I'm warning up to this idea more and more. I think most people will make the right choice. And because there's much less stigma to choosing (you chose to take an easier class, school admin didn't choose it for you), more kids are likely to choose Regular English.